‘I’ve promised my aunt that if she agrees to the operation then I’ll marry on the island.’ Fern’s voice was almost as weak a whisper as her aunt’s.
‘Marry Sam?’ Quinn’s expressive eyebrows rose skyward.
‘I don’t care if Fern changes her mind and marries the local undertaker,’ Maud muttered. She’d had her win and fatigue was starting to show. ‘But whoever she marries, she marries here. Right, Fern?’
‘R-right.’
‘Well, well,’ Quinn Gallagher drawled. He looked down at Fern and his mouth quirked into an enigmatic smile. ‘Well, well…’
Good grief…
What on earth had she done? Made promises that she had no way of knowing she could keep?
Fern left Maud to Quinn Gallagher’s capable care and escaped to the corridor.
Sam…She should see Sam before she went back to her uncle’s. He’d expect a visit for sure.
Why didn’t she want to see him?
She opened his door with trepidation, expecting maybe a repeat of the tirade of last night. Instead of scowls, however, Sam was sitting up in bed looking perfectly resplendent in his purple pyjamas and beaming with his usual good humour.
Sam normally was benign and happy, Fern thought. It was only the shock of being ill that had thrown him.
‘Fern…’ Sam held out his hands and Fern had no choice but to walk across to the bed and take them. He kissed her soundly on both cheeks. ‘How are you, sweetheart? And how’s your aunt?’
‘She’s better this morning,’ Fern told him,
Sam took a deep breath. Clearly something was disturbing him. ‘Fern, Dr Gallagher told me this morning just how close to death she’d been-and he also told me I was a right twit last night Will you forgive me?’
The wind was knocked out of Fern’s sails in a rush. She looked down at Sam and saw the same kid she’d grown up with-the man she was as familiar with as a pair of old socks-and the reasons she was marrying him
‘You were frightened yourself,’ she reassured him. ‘I was just grateful I didn’t eat any of those dreadful oysters myself.’
‘I didn’t think Lizzy would go that far for me,’ Sam said, and his tone was half-admiring. ‘She’s quite a girl.’
‘Sam…’ Fern pulled back and stared at her fiancé in concern. ‘Sam, are you absolutely sure you don’t want to marry Lizzy?’
‘Marry…’ Sam’s face froze. ‘No. Of course not. What on earth put that idea into your head? Fern, you know that thing we had in the past is well and truly over-at least it is with me. Sure, we were a pair when we were kids-but that was before you came, and before I decided I wanted a life off the island. What sort of lawyer’s wife do you reckon Lizzy would make? First, she’d be scared stiff to leave here and second…well, imagine asking clients home to dinner. If she didn’t like them I’d have to taste test their food for poison.’
‘She wouldn’t do that,’ Fern said slowly. ‘Sam, if Lizzy conformed a bit more…Are you saying you’d just as soon many her as me?’
Sam smiled and shook his head, his hands still holding Fern’s.
‘Of course not, Fern. I want a sensible wife-not a scatterbrain. You had a bad day, sweetheart, and it’s making you have doubts. Most brides have nerves before the wedding.’
‘But…’
‘Fern, we’ve agreed this is a really sensible choice. We know each other so well there are no surprises. We don’t fight We both want careers without children and neither of us believe in this crazy thing called romance. So…We’re made for each other, Fern, and you know it So as soon as we get back to Sydney…’
‘Aunt Maud wants us to marry here. Still…’
Sam frowned. ‘But Lizzy…’
‘I don’t think Lizzy will interfere again,’ Fern said sadly, thinking of Lizzy’s half scared, half defiant face as she’d left her yesterday. ‘I think it would be kinder to Lizzy if we married elsewhere-but my aunt’s desperate to see us married. She says if we marry here she’ll come to the mainland with us and have a bypass operation-and she needs it if she’s to live.’
‘Your aunt leave the island…’ Sam lay back on his pillows and stared up at Fern in amazement He knew Maud almost as well as Fern did and he knew what a concession she was making. ‘Whew…’
‘So you see…’
‘Yeah, I see.’ Sam stroked his smooth chin thoughtfully. ‘Well, we’ve three weeks’ honeymoon and today’s only Sunday. How about if we marry on Friday? It still gives us two weeks’ study time back in Sydney before we start work.’
Just like that. As romantic as making a pot of tea…
Quinn’s tea…
Stop thinking about the man. Fern forced her mind back to practicalities with a mammoth effort.
‘O-OK. A small wedding, though, Sam. Maybe even here if my aunt’s not well enough to come to church. Just my aunt and uncle and your parents.’
‘Suits me.’ He smiled. ‘Even Lizzy won’t dare try anything if we’re marrying in the hospital. But you’ll still wear your gorgeous dress, won’t you, Fern? You looked smashing.’
Fern thought back to the crumpled mound of soiled wedding dress she had left lying on her bedroom floor. Ugh…
‘I’ll have to have it cleaned,’ she said reluctantly. Why was her major impulse to bury the dress and be done with it? ‘But, yes, I’ll wear the dress.’
‘Then that’s settled…’
‘And I’m staying in hospital till then,’ Frank Reid hooted from behind the curtain. He’d obviously been listening to every word. ‘I’ve no intention of missing your wedding after all this, Fern Rycroft, even if I have to promise to drink no beer, eat no lamingtons and touch not a single oyster.’
The day dragged on after that.
Sam decided that he was staying in hospital for the day, thank you very much, in case he had a relapse and Quinn agreed with such speed that Fern thought uncharitable thoughts about the account he was mentally preparing in his head.
‘You could go home,’ she told Sam, but he shook his head.
‘I’m not risking it,’ he said, folding his arms in a gesture of final decision. ‘A man has to take care of his health-and in Dr Gallagher’s hands I’m in very good hands.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Fern agreed, casting a doubting glance at Quinn as he entered the room. There were dollar signs in his laughing eyes.
‘He doesn’t need to be here,’ she told Quinn as they left together.
‘Any suggestions how to shift him?’ Quinn grinned. ‘It doesn’t bother me that he stays, Dr Rycroft. He’s a paying customer and if I need the bed I’ll move him somehow-even by enema if I have to.’
Fern laughed, but she was mortified all the same.
‘Don’t fret,’ Quinn told her, seeing the doubt behind her smile. He touched her fleetingly on the cheek with a touch that felt as if it was charged with electricity. ‘I’ll take great care of your beloved. For you…’
He left her standing on the hospital steps, feeling more confused than she’d ever felt in her life.
Fern drove back to the farmhouse to find her uncle in deepest despair. He cheered up, though, when Fern told him of his wife’s decision to have the operation and went off to the hospital to sit with her.
Fern was left facing the mess from the day before.
The mess suited her mood.
The lunch dishes were still unwashed from yesterday’s ill-fated wedding lunch. The guests had gone straight from lunch to the church. ‘We’ll fix this mess later,’ Maud had promised and here it was…later. There were still a couple of oysters, cold and congealed on plates around the room. Ugh!
Even after Fern had cleared the mess she cleaned on, polishing mirrors, searching for non-existent cobwebs…
Trying to block out Quinn Gallagher and his unwelcome offer…